Jack Goddard was one of three rhubarb growers in what we know as Applewood Acres. The Leaverleigh Farms (Leaver’s) and a small market gardener Frank Verbonham were the others. Mr. Verbonham, who owned property in the area east of Stanfield, had a small operation and sold roots for twenty-five cents. He grew Sutton Seedless, which has a large green stalk with broad pink petioles. Leaverleigh Farms, in contrast, was a larger market garden farm operation.
Evenutally mushrooms would replace rhubarb as the crop of choice. Around 1939 Goddard Farms switched and operated four mushroom houses each with 7,000 square feet (650 square metres). The houses would be five beds high. Because mushrooms would not grow in hot conditions, The ideal growing temperature is 60 degrees F ( 15.5 degrees C), only two crops would be grown each year.
According to Jack Goddard, there was always a market and if a grower could produce three crops it would sell with no problem. But as it was, growing two and a half pounds to the foot (1.13 kg to 0.3 m) was about the best to be expected. Air conditioning would allow this figure to triple and of course, that’s where larger firms such as Leaver’s would produce such yields.
Mushroom growing is labour intensive and the Goddard farm employed four families. All that was needed to go to work was a small knife to tend to the mushrooms every day.
In the early days mushrooms would be grown largely by greenhouse growers. They would grow the mushrooms under their plants in greenhouses. About one in 10 would have a successful crop.
It wasn’t until the pure culture spawn from Pennsylvania came into the marketplace that the success rate became sufficiently profitable for growers to concentrate on mushrooms as a main crop.
Goddard Farms sold wholesale mainly to Lester’s in Toronto and to Agro Brothers from Hamilton. The surplus would be taken by Campbell Soups. The Goddard operation marketed mushrooms for 25 years and ended their operation when The Queensway went through in 1974.
It was a tough business with crop failures running as much as 90 per cent and, according to Jack Goddard, it was very much a hit and miss type of business. So to have marketed successfully for 25 years was quite a feat.
“Avon calling”…. that familiar greeting can be traced back to the earliest of days in Applewood thanks to the entrepreneurship of Dora Inns, Applewood Acres’ first Avon Lady. Dora moved to her Hedge Road house in November 1953 and on her doctor’s orders, had to take up an activity that would get her out of the house for something to do.
“Applewood was a lonely place in those days. There were no telephones, and my husband was away all day at work. People were just lonely,” she would say in an interview 50 years later. After a successful 13 year career Dora gave her Avon assignment to Harcourt Road resident Donna Cooper who held it for a year before a short break when her first child was born. Less than a year later Donna started back again and has been the Avon Lady ever since.